When President Obama and Raul Castro announced an effort to normalize ties between the United States and Cuba, the regime announced it would release 53 political prisoners.

But it never said it wouldn't re-arrest any of them.

And so, according to Hablemos Press via Capitol Hill Cubans, Rolando Reyes Rabanal and Luis Enrique Labrador are once again behind bars. And Cuba critics like Miami Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart are as outraged as they are not surprised. Here's the Republican's statement, which goes on to note the two were arrested along with another activist, Miguel Daniel Borroto Vazquez:

"According to reports, Cuban activists Rolando Reyes Rabanal and Luis Enrique Labrador, who are on the President's list of 53 political prisoners, were once again arrested while attempting to join a pro-democracy meeting of the Movement for a New Republic. Another opposition activist who was not on the list, Miguel Daniel Borroto Vazquez, was beaten, arrested, and ultimately imprisoned in El Vivac detention center.

“The President's flawed and arbitrary list of 53 political prisoners falls far short of a condition that should be non-negotiable: the permanent release of ALL political prisoners. When the Castro regime re-arrests political prisoners after the President "negotiated" their release, it makes a mockery of the entire bad deal. But, as the administration has conceded several times, the President is too invested in his policy of appeasement to change course over the regime's human rights abuses. It remains an utter disgrace that a decent human rights record, and Cuban prisons emptied of innocent men and women, was not part of the President's deal.”

"This is a windfall for the Castro regime that will be used to fund its repression against Cubans, as well as its activities against U.S. national interests in Latin America and beyond. Given existing U.S. laws about our Cuba policy, this slew of regulations leave at least one major question President Obama and his administration have failed to answer so far: what legal authority does he have to enrich the Castro regime in these ways?

“Yesterday I requested answers from Secretary Lew on how this new Cuba policy would be implemented without violating the letter and spirit of several U.S. laws, and without increasing the moral and financial risk to the American taxpayer and financial system of doing business through Cuba’s government-controlled financial system. While those questions remain unanswered, one thing that’s become even more crystal clear today is that this one-sided deal is enriching a tyrant and his regime at the expense of U.S. national interests and the Cuban people."

New rules that will make it easier to travel to Cuba - and bring back Cuban cigars - will go into effect Friday, less than a month after President Barack Obama announced plans to restore long-severed diplomatic ties with the communist-led island.

The new Treasury and Commerce Department regulations -- to be published Friday in the Federal Register -- include making it easier to travel to Cuba and raising the limits on how much money can be sent to Cuba.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called the changes a “significant step forward” in carrying out Obama’s new policy.

“These changes will immediately enable the American people to provide more resources to empower the Cuban population to become less dependent upon the state-driven economy, and help facilitate our growing relationship with the Cuban people,” Earnest said in a statement.

The changes will mean that travelers who meet certain categories will no longer need to apply for a license to travel to Cuba. The categories include family visits, official U.S. or foreign governments, journalistic, professional research and professional meetings; educational activities; religious activities; public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, exhibitions; support for the Cuban people; humanitarian projects; private foundations or research or educational institutes; export, import, or transmission of information.

A Miami-Dade County politician has quietly taken on the fight against a federal law — once seen as untouchable — that gives Cubans special immigration privileges.

County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro filed legislation urging Congress to do away with the preference provided to Cuban migrants under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans to apply for residency 366 days after their arrival in the U.S. — a perk afforded no other foreigners. The commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal next Wednesday. Six of its 13 members, including Barreiro, are Cuban-American.

Local government has no power to overturn U.S. law. But last month’s announcement by President Barack Obama that he would seek to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations has renewed interest on U.S. policy toward the island — and raised questions as to whether the CAA, designed to help Cubans fleeing political persecution, would still make sense under closer diplomatic ties. Changes to the CAA would require congressional action.

Barreiro, 49, said in a telephone interview from Mexico on Wednesday that though his own family has benefited from the law -- he is the U.S.-born son of Cuban immigrants -- it's time for it to expire.

"This thing, that you come over and you're a resident in a year and a day and after that you go back to Cuba -- it's ridiculous," he said. "It's helping the regime."

He conceded his proposal could be contentious, given that many Cuban migrants rely on the CAA to find a better life away from the island's communist regime. But Barreiro said those people would still be able to apply for political asylum like other foreigners.

Barreiro is registered Republican, though his commission seat is nonpartisan. His District 5 includes downtown, South Beach, Little Havana and portions of the Miami River.

Critics have long noted that Cubans are the only immigrants who are not sent back to their country when they reach the U.S. illegally — special treatment that migrants from Haiti and elsewhere from the Caribbean do not receive when they arrive on battered rafts to Florida’s shores. Separate from the CAA, a policy known as “wet-foot, dry-foot” allows Cuban rafters to stay if they reach U.S. soil, though they’re deported if interdicted at sea.

The U.S. says Cuba has released 53 political prisoners as part of its deal to start normalizing diplomatic relations.

But Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who is mulling a presidential run that would presumably play up his interest in foreign policy, wants President Barack Obama's administration to provide more detail about how those prisoners were chosen.

Rubio sent Obama a letter Tuesday posing a series of questions that suggest the Cuban government may have given up relatively little in the arrangement. Some of the prisoners, Rubio notes, have been released on probation or with other conditions infringing on their freedom.

"Cuban activists report that many of the people on the list had already been released months prior to your announcement on December 17, in one case, more than a year earlier," the senator wrote. "Others had already served the bulk of their sentences and were already due to be released. One political prisoner was released and then subsequently re-arrested and beaten and then released again.

"Human rights groups also report that many of those released have been done so conditionally with charges still pending against them, released on probation, released with the threat of being imprisoned again if they resume their efforts in support of freedom for the Cuban people, or released with prohibitions on being able to leave the country."

Last week, Rubio wrote the president urging him to call off talks in Havana later this month until the prisoners were released.

The letters are aimed more at Rubio's South Florida constituency of hardline supporters of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba -- and to the public at large taking a close look at the still-young deal -- rather than just at the president himself. Rubio's office has circulated them to reporters in news releases.

But it's pressure from members of Congress -- though not always from presidential hopefuls -- that sometimes forces government agencies to release information. On Monday, for example, the names of the 53 prisoners surfaced after a list was provided to congressional leaders. It wasn't until later that an administration spokeswoman confirmed the information.

Six Cuban-American members of Congress asked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday to reconsider normalization talks with Cuba.

"We agree in the importance of advocating on behalf of U.S. national security interests, human rights, and basic freedoms for the Cuban people," the letter says.

"However, mere lip service is inadequate. As such, we urge you to cease unilateral concessions that reward and embolden a brutal dictatorship in the midst of a brutal crackdown. Canceling future talks, and ending unilateral concessions, would signal that the Administration's position on human rights is not just empty rhetoric and broken promises, but is actually supported by concrete actions."

The letter is signed by three Miami Republicans, Reps. Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and by Reps. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) and Albio Sires (D-N.J.) and Sen. Ted Cruz, D-Texas.

The missing Cuban American is one of Cruz's potential presidential rivals, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who wrote a letter of his own earlier this week to President Barack Obama urging him not to hold talks with Cuba without more information on 53 political prisoners the island's communist regime was supposed to release. Some of the prisoners were reportedly freed Thursday.

The Obama administration has given little attention to Cuban Americans who have loudly criticized the president's rapprochment with Cuba. Talks between the two countries are scheduled to take place in Havana on Jan. 21-22.

The Obama administration has scheduled to hold diplomatic talks with Cuba later this month, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wants the president to put them off.

Rubio sent President Barack Obama a letter Tuesday urging him to cancel any U.S.-Cuba normalization talks until Cuba makes more information available about the 53 political prisoners it was supposed to release.

"To date, no information has been provided about the political prisoners to be released -– regarding their identities, conditions or whereabouts, even on a confidential basis, to members of Congress," Rubio wrote.

"Just yesterday, your own State Department was unable to provide an explanation about the political prisoners in question. How is the United States supposed to hold the Cuban dictatorship responsible for the well-being of these political prisoners if your Administration is unable or unwilling to provide this transparency?"

The Republican senator opposes the Democratic president's rapprochement with Cuba as a whole, not just this month's talks. As he considers a presidential run, that position might put Rubio at odds with much of the country, which supports closer ties to the island. But keeping the issue at the forefront is key for Rubio's Cuban-American base in South Florida -- and stresses his interest in foreign policy, which other potential GOP candidates may lack.

The polling is in: Cuban exile hardliners and Republicans are in the clear minority nationwide when it comes to the embargo and reestablishing ties with the island nation.

A raft of new surveys, taken after President Barack Obama announced plans Wednesday to normalize relations with Cuba, shows far more Americans want the sanctions lifted and relations improved compared to those who favor current U.S. policy — namely Republicans and many Cuban-Americans.

But there’s one aspect of U.S. Cuba policy that Cuban-Americans, rank-and-file Republicans nationwide and Americans in general agree on: Easing travel restrictions to the island.

The surveys are unwelcome — but not unexpected news — to embargo supporters, mostly centered in South Florida where two potential presidential candidates, former Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, have been outspoken about strengthening the embargo.

“We’ve found that the more information people learn about what happens in Cuba, the more they are to support U.S. policy,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, the nation’s premier political action committee that supports the exile community.

“That’s always been the challenge: Informing people,” Claver-Carone said. “We’re a small community, yes, but we have a big megaphone.”

And in America at large, Republicans’ and the Cuban-American community’s attitudes about Cuba policy are decidedly in the minority, according to a comparison of national polls from CNN/ORC International, Langer Research/ABC-Washington Post, Reuters/Ipsos, CBS and a Bendixen & Amandi International survey conducted last week for The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and the Tampa Bay Times.....

Normalizing relations:

ABC/Langer: Americans back it 64-31 percent; while the GOP is split 49-47 percent. “Very conservative” respondents’ support was lacking, 36-61 percent.

CBS: Americans back it 54-28 percent. CBS did not provide political party data. All the national polls surveyed about 1,000 people and have an error margin of 3.5 percentage points. The Republican polling numbers have a larger error margin.

Embargo

ABC/Langer: Americans want it ended, 68-29 percent; while Republicans want it ended 57-40 percent. But “very conservative” support is lowest at 42-57 percent.

President Barack Obama’s announcement that the United States and Cuba would proceed toward normalized relations put Miami’s Cuban-American GOP Congressional delegation in the national spotlight.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Reps Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen held a press conference Dec. 18 to bash Obama’s announcement.

Diaz-Balart characterized Obama’s position as a significant change from what he said during the 2008 campaign.

Back in 2008, during Obama’s first White House bid, the future president said that "before normalization would take place, there would have to be liberation of all political prisoners and some basic steps toward freedom, including freedom of the press, political parties, labor unions, etc.," Diaz-Balart said at the press conference. "Then, once again, President Obama -- breaking his own word, breaking his own pledge -- has decided to do something absolutely without precedent, and that is to give an anti-American terrorist dictatorship exactly what they have been asking for."

Is Diaz-Balart correct about what Obama, then a senator, said would be his criteria for normalizing relations with Cuba? We went back to his campaign speeches and statements to find out. See what PolitiFact Florida found.

Critics of President Barack Obama’s move to normalize relations with Cuba have suggested they will do whatever they can to stand in the plan’s way, from holding up the appointment of an ambassador to denying funding for a new embassy.

But the moves would be more symbolic than anything, Obama’s former Cuba policy adviser Dan Restrepo told CNN.

While the Senate could block the formal confirmation of an ambassador, Obama could tap a career diplomat to lead the embassy without Senate approval. And as for the embassy itself?

"The U.S. has the largest diplomatic presence of any country in Cuba in Havana today," Restrepo told Anderson Cooper on Dec. 17. "The U.S. interests section is the largest diplomatic gathering in the country. It’s housed in the building that was the U.S. embassy before we broke off diplomatic relations. So the notion that you’re going to shut that operation down when really what you’re doing is changing the sign on the door doesn’t really square up with reality."

The idea that the United States already has the largest diplomatic presence in Cuba sounds shocking given our five-decade embargo of the island nation. So we wanted to learn more. Turn to Katie Sanders report from PunditFact.